Google Buzz plays a catch-up with Twitter’s new-style retweeting

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Google thought long and hard about naming a new feature that lets you repost someone’s buzz post with not one, but two clicks (more on that later).

After mulling over several choices, Google opted for a simple “reshare” that people “tend to say naturally,” as they put it. Rebuzz sounded “kinda lame” and the search firm wanted to avoid introducing new verbs such as “repost.”

Simply click “Reshare” next to a buzz post you want to reshare, type in an optional comment, and click the “Post” button. The new post will include a link to the original post, Google said. You aren’t allowed to reshare someone’s private post, but you can choose to reshare other people’s public posts either privately or publicly.

Google thought it was important to explain why they opted for a two-click reshare instead of a simplified one-click approach akin to Twitter’s new-style “Retweet” button. Software engineer Sam Goto explained in a blog post they wanted to give folks more choice before sharing an item:

One click vs. two click reshare was a hard choice (I know, it doesn’t sound so hard, but we spent a lot of time on this!). Ultimately, we chose to go with two clicks because we want people to be able to reshare publicly or privately and also encourage resharers to add their own new content to the post.

When a bunch of people reshare the same post, their names get listed on the original post and similar posts get collapsed to help reduce the inbox clutter. This lets you see how popular an item you’ve reshared has become. The company also noted there’s a distinction between liking a reshare and liking the original post.